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Re: There are at least two different pronunciations for "Eleven"?

Well, I do understand what you're saying, but I must say I can't make it sound natural. Or maybe it's not about the sound of it, but my motoric habit. Anyway, making the /v/ bilabial is strange to me when I pronounce this word. Perhaps if I heard someone else say it, it wouldn't sound strange at all. But I'm almost sure I have never done it myself. Well, until now.

Re: There are at least two different pronunciations for "Eleven"?

Originally Posted by birdeen's call

I don't understand what that means. What's "elebm"?

This is what I mean: [ɪˈlɛbm̩] Here m is syllabic or b is nasally released. This has nothing to do with the word that follows the word 'seven'. This kind of variation heard in words like seven, open, happen, etc.

Even words like ad'mit and ad'mire have variations: ab'mit and ab'mire. Here, there is no syllabic m.

The word government is pronounced as gubmint. Here, it is like the pronunciation of seven described above.

Re: There are at least two different pronunciations for "Eleven"?

b is missing there. [sebm̩] is accepted. You are not going to hear that from pulpit, where non-functor words tend to be emphasized more often. Call it a register variant. I don't know whether it is heard in BrE.

My dentist's hygenist (in Northern California) uses [ˈoʊpm̩], when she asks her patients to open their mouths while cleaning. Just as a single word, no word before or after.

Someone from 1930's discussed this phenomenon. Charles-James Bailey discussed it as well. It is more of a tempo/register variant.

Re: There are at least two different pronunciations for "Eleven"?

I asked because you convinced me about the particular situation you described. My intuition is that this is impossible in "open up", and less probable in "it's open". I still can't get used to it in "eleven".

Re: There are at least two different pronunciations for "Eleven"?

Originally Posted by birdeen's call

And that's a pronunciation of "eleven" native speakers use? I don't think I have encountered it.

It is, as phoneticians say, allophonic utterance-finally*.

b

PS * ... and, as 5jj said, when there's assimilation (due to a following bilabial). As he also said, most native speakers aren't aware of it, and even dispute it when you tell them - until they see a spectrogram.